STW

Save the World (STW) was an organization founded in Altotta by a man named The Cold Sword in the autumn of 3915. They were famous for being very wealthy, seemingly perpetually turning poverty into riches wherever they were found. They owned restaurants and other stores, and openly charged customers far higher prices than the label price for the items they sold, but customers kept coming back. This was partly because STW had achieved monopolies on many of the items they sold, and partly because some customers hoped to reach the inner circle of STW's power structure at which the prices were actually lower than advertised. They took their power from the native Thunder people (Altottan citizens are called Thunderers, although this is the name of the primary political party, not an ethnic name.)

STW was notable for thriving on increasing immigration into Altotta, which had in 3886 been taken over by the Thunderers, a strongly racist political party that despised all outsiders. STW promised to despise outsiders just as strongly, but they had a different definition of who the outsiders were.

Business model

See Kava for background information.

STW used slavery both directly and indirectly to achieve its otherwise unbelievable gains. They invited slaves living in Subumpam and Lobexon, which had not long ago been the economic powerhouses of the planet, to move to Altotta and work for STW.

They sold the items the slaves produced at high prices, and charged customers even higher prices than what they advertised. A pineapple sitting on a shelf might be labeled as costing 500 dét, but when the customer picked it out the cashier would tell her that it actually cost 1500 dét. Another customer behind her might get the same pineapple for 550 dét, depending on the cashier's whims; all of the power was in the hands of the cashiers. Some customers placed their orders and paid, then waited patiently only to be told that STW had decided to move on to the next customer and not fulfill their first customer's order. THen they would be forced to walk out empty handed or pay a second time and hope to get their food sometime before sunset.

Other things STW was notable for included raising the price in the middle of a transaction "It just went on sale for five times as much!" etc And having cashiers argue with each other over what the price of an item should be. One cashier was allowed to file a dispute with another for not overcharging a customer enough, in the middle of a transaction, and force that cashier to raise her prices. STW rhymed with PMS in most of the common languages at the time, so people perverted STW's motto into "Most of us have PMS, the rest work on saving you from us". This was intended an insult both against their stores' typically unfair and malicious business practices and against STW's primarily female power structure.However, this same rhyme could be made for any name which ends in a verbal imperative.

As above, though, an inner circle of loyal customers were granted the coveted privilege of getting their products for prices that were actually lower than the shelf label prices. None of the customers knew what they needed to do to get this privilege, nor were they told what the secret was once they had been granted it. These people became very powerful in their society, since they could buy things for their friends at low prices, and STW allowed them to resell their merchandiese. In towns where STW approached monopoly status, the resellers with the discount privilege became very rich, and most chose to make power-shopping their career, collecting the royalties from their secondhand customers. STW allowed this because even the reduced prices were still usually profitable for STW, and the large purchases of the resellers guaranteed them high profits. STW reserved the right to revoke the discount privilege if a reseller attempted to open an actual physical store with preowned STW merchandise in it, or was seen buying goods at low prices for an immigrant from the hated empire of Dreamland or one of STW's individual enemies.

STW called its rival businesses "the Empire" and stated that Altottans should shop at STW because it was a political organization opposed to the monopoly on power held by the government of Altotta. STW claimed that governments should have rivals within their own nation in order to keep them from becoming too corrupt. STW claimed to be interested in expanding worldwide, but had bases only in Altotta. Often, STW placed their stores near rival stores with lower prices but poor selection, and then claimed to be superior.

STW store managers often robbed rival stores, but generally restricted these actions to stores run by immigrants, particulaly Dreamers, because they knew that the public opinion of STW would turn sharply negative if they were seen attacking their real enemy, the ruling class of the native Thunderers. Also, Crystals were generally welcome in STW, and their businesses were not targeted. STW was using the same plrralistic strategy that Kava had been born from almost 1500 years earlier. The original Kavans, called the Hinku, were openly racist against all of their enemies, but they themselves were diverse internally because they allowed all of the tribes of the Subumpamese Union, plus all of the Pabaps and all of the Andanese, to call themselves Hinku, and therefore claimed that "Hinku" people were being oppressed in nations where any of those people had become established. THis strategy had worked well, because even though the Subumpamese, the Pabaps, and the Andanese did not have a lot of things in common, there were never any major wars between any of those three groups, and even though they had not previously considered themselves allies, it was easy to do so since there were no old feuds to settle.

STW was not anti-immigrant in general, and in fact was inviting Thaoans to move into Altotta and join STW, even though Thaoa had generally been seen as a hostile and at best untrustworthy nation. The least among the Thaoans was considered superior in STW to the greatest among the non-STW Thunderers. But below even the Thunderers STW placed the already hated Dreamers, and celebrated each successful robbery, as if to demonstrate that STW was fighting for the interests of the many people in Altotta who hated all Dreamers, while the normally aggressive Thunder government did not seem to care that Dreamers were living in Altotta and making money off of its people at all.

Currency

STW had a second currency that only STW members could own: the asala. This was awarded for good deeds, and had no limit. The asala was constantly getting weaker against the dét because STW kept minting new asala coins and new dét coins were printed only very slowly. Graduating to a new grade also conferred an award in asala, with the amount almost doubling for each grade.

Schools

STW also owned its own school system, and those schools specifically competed with the government-run schools of the empire of Altotta. The schools ran from first grade through eighth grade, but these were not strictly delineated by age. Everyone joined as a first-grader, regardless of their age. Some students (particularly those who had had some education in a government school) rose through the ranks quickly, graduating in less than a year. Other students never made it out of the eighth grade at all. Like Kava, STW encouraged its students to "outparent their parents" and come home from school each day having learned a new skill they could teach their parents and increase their parents' dependency on their children's rapidly growing power.

Recruitment and growth

New members joined STW by invitation, and each new member had to be approved by the chief. A newly founded Base generally started with a small membership consisting of leaders who had moved in from another Base, bringing their children with them. These children would meet the other Thunder children in day to day life, and make friends with them even though they did not go to school together. Then they would invite their friends to join STW. Adults were recruited less often, despite their much greater economic value, because the economy of Altotta at this time was such that adults could not easily bring their jobs with them to STW. However, a non-STWer who had children in STW would be treated better by STW than Thunderers who refused to let their children join STW.

Immigration

In 3884, the government of Altotta had been overthrown by a group of Thunderers who wanted to restore their nation's original intolerance of immigrants. The government that they overthrew had been run almost entirely by immigrants from Dreamland who had impoverished Altotta and gave the money to Dreamland. The government before that had been run largely by the Crystals, who were also mostly outsiders. They said that Altotta was a nation for Thunderers only and any other groups found living in Altotta would be subject to slavery or exile. Thus, most Crystals living in Altotta became slaves. These new Thunderers also went further and endorsed racism, meaning that Crystals could not simply convert to Thunderism to achieve equal status. The Thunderers were quite diverse, because they had grown over a large area and married many aboriginals, but they had grown almost entirely over Repilian territory, and the few areas of their Empire that were not Repilian had seceded anyway. Thus, like their Kavan ancestors in 2371 AD, the Thunderers in 3884 AD were all light-skinned people, usually with blonde or light brown hair. The Crystals, on the other hand, were also very diverse, but they had spread mostly over areas whose aboriginal populations were very dark-skinned, just like the original Crystals in the 1500s. To the Thunderers, all of the Crystals looked alike. There were dark-skinned Thunderers and light-skinned Crystals, but almost all of these were the offspring of Crystals who had moved into Altotta and married into a Thunder family. Only a tiny number of true religious converts existed. Since Altotta had been run by the Crystals for sixty years, most of these families were several generations deep. There had been similar contacts further back in history; even as far back as the 2370s, when Kava was only four years old, a troop of Crystals had invaded Kava and set up plantations. These people were welcomed because at the time, Kava was so weak that its government was forced to pretend that the invasion was an invitation. These settlers were mostly adult males, so the Crystal settlers and the Kavan women had had many children. This was terribly embarrassing for Kava because Kava had been founded on the same principle of being a nation for Kavans only, but a foreign army had just invaded their territory and taken their women. But now the Thunderers banned all people known to have any Crystal ancestry from identifying as Thunderers, and put all but the upper class of the Crystals into slavery.

The Thunderers hated the Dreamers much more than they hated the Crystals. Unlike the Crystals, the Dreamers could in fact sometimes blend in physically with Thunderers. This was because the Dreamers were descended from a mix of Thunderers with immigrants from Laba.

The Thunderers also endorsed atheism, even though the government they had overthrown was also atheist, but they considered religion to be of little importance in their society and did not prevent the Crystal slaves from practicing their religion. They even managed to remain formally an ally of the Crystals' home empire of Baeba, despite being openly racist against Crystals. This was because they both hated the empire of Dreamland even more than Altotta hated the Crystals. Moreover, Altotta offered to repatriate Crystals to Baeba using trade routes and to ensure that the slave labor the Crystals worked was much more lenient than that assigned to the descendants of the immigrants from Dreamland.

In the very early years of STW's existence, it relied largely on immigration to grow. These immigrants were all illegal, because the Thunder government had shut down immigration entirely to protect itself from the threat of yet another coup leading to a new government dominated by foreigners. STW thus was embarrassing Altotta by proudly violating the laws, but Altotta couldn't stop the immigration because the STW members stuck firmly to each other, and STW was popular enough that even Thunderers who were outside STW did not call for the closure of STW bases simply because they were hosting illegal immigrants.

Only four years after STW's founding, the Thunderers overthrew their government yet again. This time, however, the group taking power also considered itself a Thunder organization, and merely wanted to reform the government rather than replacing it. They released the Crystal slaves (but not most Dreamers) and allowed immigration to return in limited numbers. They did not publicly admit that what they had privately known: that immigration was going to continue no matter what the law was, and that by legalizing immigration they could at least potentially limit the power of STW. However, they were still worried that immigrants would all favor STW, and that if STW became powerful enough they could find themselves living in a society with Thunderers at the very bottom and the Crystals and the other immigrant groups piled on top of them.

Thus, even though the laws had changed, most Thunderers' attitudes had not. Most immigrants were Crystals, the same people who had driven Altotta into poverty just forty years earlier. Altotta already had a sizable Crystal minority, which had just been released from slavery, and the Thunder leaders figured that the Crystals would be even more hostile towards Altotta than they had been in the past. Some Thunderers wanted to move to the Crystal Empire, figuring that they could at least prevent a Crystal takeover of Altotta by threatening to cause problems in the Crystal Empire itself, but the Crystals wouldn't let them in. Frustrated at their people's sudden helplessness after being the most powerful empire in the world for hundreds of years, the Thunderers considered formally outlawing immigration once again since they figured at best it would fill them with a second hostile underclass and at worst lead to yet another government led by foreigners.

Hierarchy

Each establishment of STW was a "Base", which was governed by a chief. Like a corporation, each chief had absolute irreproachable power over their members, but no power over any of the other bases. The chief had the only vote in accepting or denying membership in STW, although in bases that were very large, they delegated their authority to trusted members. Below the chiefs and co-chiefs were captains, who were ordinary members, and thus had no power, but were being given jobs in which they exercise authority over other members in preparation for a future promotion. These were generally very few, as each STW base had only one chief.

All new STW members were required to attend the local STW school, even if they were adults. Adults however tended to graduate very quickly. STW's membership tended to consist entirely of children when a new Base first arrived in a city, except for the authority figures. Even in cities where STW had been around for hundreds of years, however, the membership still consisted mostly of children, as adults could be expelled for minor misdeeds, and were generally not let back in. Even the worst of these expelled people were treated as superior to people who had never been members of STW at all, in the hopes that they might decide to put down their weapons and allow STW to rescue them from their evil ways.

Most people kicked out of STW were males, which meant that STW's leadership was primarily women, and the husbands of these leaders worked under the close management of their wives. Often, a hisband was given a second-in-command role, but other chiefs preferred to give their husband a job with only "soft power" where he did not see his wife very often and was treated as an extension of her authority. Note that STW had many jobs for adults, but most of them carried no official power because the hierarchy of power in STW was very flat. However, STW did reward its hardest working members with large paychecks, and money was necessary to advance in power anyway.

While STW's leaders were mostly women, their worst enemies were almost all adult males. STW did not consider itself feministic, but their teachers taught that the primary difference between women and men is that women enjoy helping people, and men enjoy hurting people. Sometimes the motto was strengthed to "Women create life, men create death". Although the rest of Altotta respected STW, they had little sympathy for STW chiefs who were murdered by people they had kicked out of STW.

There were many internal conflicts between the different STW bases that were as important and dangerous as their conflicts with the expelled leaders they had kicked out. Only the president of STW could demote a chief; there was no intermediate level of power even when STW grew to several hundred Bases. The most powerful Bases historically were Base 7, Base 34, Base 44, and Base 91.

STW kept its secrets very well, and non-members were not allowed to even enter the schools.

Below the normal members were the slaves. Slaves were not considered members of STW, but STW distinguished between ordinary Thunderers and their slaves. Because STW consisted largely of women and children, they preferred slaves to work in areas that were physically separated from the STW schools and other central buildings, but some slaves worked directly for STW and therefore interacted with STW members other than their masters every day. These tended to be the ones involved in heavy manual labor that most STW members were physically incapable of. These slaves tended to be males. Note that many STWers did not have the tall-female gene, and thus men were much stronger than women, but they still tended to be small in comparison to many foreigners. Small children were given control of some of the slave laborers, typically those consisting of slaves that did menial jobs for the children such as preparing their meals and cleaning their bathrooms. Young children returning from their first day at STW would walk home and tell their parents they had been waited on hand and foot and felt for the first time in their life what it truly meant to be powerful.

History and politics

Early history

Early STW supported the Zenith. From the very date of its founding, it was at war with Dreamland, although this was because it had allied with the Scope party, which had declared war on Dreamland. STW even then consisted mostly of unarmed children, and they painted expansive murals on the city walls portraying diapered STW toddlers physically defeating the invading Dreamer army. In reality, however, STW protected its members very dutifully, and STW's contribution to the war was mainly derived from providing food and supplies to the far more robust Scope army.

STW created the name Lindasi for iteslf in contexts where it wanted to be seen as a country. Names like "Lindasia" for their territory thus were created. The Zeniths wanted to wipe out all that was not from them, including Baeba Swamp and the Crystals. Some Zeniths were atheists, and others had different religions that didnt get along. This was unusual for this era since most political parties had only one religion. STW declared that it was not a political party, but merely a political and economic organization, and therefore STW also allowed multiple religions within its power structure.

Early STW strongly hated the enslaved Crystals living in Altotta, as did the Zenith. They also wanted to take over Baeba Swamp. They declared a symbolic war against Laba, a distant enemy that could neither harm nor be harmed by STW.

In 3919, the Thunder government was overthrown by dissenters from within who wanted an end to state-sponsored racism and newer, more liberal laws. STW had horrified the Thunder government by encouragin aggressive immigration, in a nation that had prided itself on being off-limits to foreigners. As STW grew richer, the Thunderers realized non-STW Thunderers were going to be at the bottom of society with STW and all its immigrants on top. Although the government was overthrown only four years after the founding of STW, and the borders re-opened, social attitudes did not quickly change, and many Thunderers assumed that anyone not a member of the Thunder "race" was an STW member.

The new government still called itself the Thunderers, because it had the same ideology as the old THunderers. The new Thunderers did have a few differences, however. They did not believe in judicial organizations, meaning that they were going to get rid of the entire court system and make law a private matter negotiated between individuals. The enslavement of Crystals was ended, although slavery of other groups continued.

By 3948, a woman named Enodab took power in STW. She was only the chief of STW Base 7, but had grown powerful enough to gain the president's approval to act on behalf of (and against the will of) other Bases. The situation was very similar to Afunyū's authority over the president of Pipaippis in 1950s Subumpam, except that Enodab (also Ende, Entece, etc) was supplanting the president of her own organization rather than the government. Enodab spent much of her time promoting pacifism in Nama and Dreamland, hoping those two empires would become so pacified that Enodab herself could personally rule over them. She focused mostly on Nama, even though a lot of other empires were also focusing on Nama. In August 3948, Nama decided its government was so pathetic that they stopped allowing Ende's missionaries to visit, since the Namans seemed to believe the missionaries who claimed that Nama's fortunes would improve if they became even more pacifistic and allowed Altotta to intrude even further inside them. Soon the missionaries moved on from Nama to Paba, although by moving to Paba they escaped Ende's control and were no longer directly working for her interests.

Ende then decided to invade Paba, brigning back slaves to work for her in STW. Since STW was an organization within Altotta, and Altotta was descended from Kava, she had finally broken the promise of the year 2371 in which the founders of Kava had promised never to attack or enslave Pabaps. By this time, however, Paba was so foreign that many STWers had never even heard of it. Paba refused to fight back against the invasion, preferring to focus on its many internal problems instead. However, as STW was still very small at this time, Ende's army was abducting mere hundreds, not thousands, of Pabap civilians back to STW. Altotta's own army also refused to participate in this war.

War with Laba

The king of Laba, Adabawa, was attempting to build a coalition of nations on Rilola to fight back against Altotta and the rapidly growing STW. Although STW hated Altotta, their foreign policies were the same, and any enemy of Altotta became an enemy of STW. THhus their symbolic war against Laba became real, although it was being fought mostly in Baeba Swamp for the time being, with a second front opening in Paba. In both of these territories, Lenians were the ones fighting for Adabawa; Adabawa's own people did very little fighting because they lived on the islands of Laba.

Adabawa captured most of the fake pacifists that Ende had sent to Nama and had moved to Paba. From them he learned military secrets, and vowed to make an alliance with Altotta, and then invade and crush Paba before Altotta could. (He was willing to offer them much of Nama however.) However, in 3952, Altotta rejected Adabawa and shut its foreign diplomacy program with Laba entirely. THey had held a debate in central Nama between Adabawa and a Naman pacifist, and the pacifist won the debate. Thus Altotta became more pacifistic, because the only alternative presented to them was to make an alliance with Laba. Other nations respected Altotta now and stopped their wars. Thus it was now Laba that was isolated.

However, Adabawa still had the comfort of knowing that if Ende attacked Nama or Paba, they would submit to Laba instead of Ende. Altotta decided to launch an all-out war against Dreamland, Baeba Swamp, Nama, Lobexon, Subumpam, Paba, Thaoa, Repilia, Taryte, Ihhai, and Katō. They planned to occupy the Pabap cities of Bespe, Mwama, Pepplapom, Pemplaevap, Pispiža, Pumpumae, Brili, Soppamap, Wabbap, Puvem, Tape, Bleppe, Wamu, Papfa, Pifappam, Pemplaepap, Pipambam, Papsa Pamba, Pompymem, Swupi, Pampi, Weppwaba, Pempape, Piso, Wasa, Pumpubap, Mipaeba, Papiare, Lombob, Atte, Safampas, Pipop, Pruplap, Plipum, Nulpanebba, Pussapim, Uba, Embypep, Saleste, Anamba, Lapep, Munampa, Uppa, Pepplap, Puppup, Uppa, Pumia, Wampfampe, Ufpa, Ambama, Pisti, Puppel, Ippra, Puspla, Wepplem, Wappambwa, Pospy, Pappep, Sempe, Napam, Žušap, Isempa, Savbam, Ipla, Ampwap, Pfupu, Pambami, Popta, Samne, Punnap, Pufpa, Masoppa, Plippep, Blumpu, Wabbap, Pulta, Panampa, Op, Bep, Umplap, Poppumba, Pampla, Pambup, Bempsap, Rumpel, Empem, Tampe, Pampappe, Lespape, Sampe, Tensare, Wipep, Pipi, Tem, Wampam, Marlema, Pambap, Sopsap, Pappfas, Mura, Wabe, Waba, Pupfa, Žabo, Puva, Wabaepefa, Pampyppwospe, Masop, Lumam, Bworpam, Balambam, Usfap, Puppapapa, Pibžabbam, Puspospi, Eppe, Pottem, Noppra, Pattelbup, Plipsop, Pafpi, Sipsa, Lasap, Tamma, Pistipwa, Plubia, Pisa, Supfe, Ipreppwe, Soppom, Pampaspa, Mam, Paffampi, Napel, Ippwem, Pampo, Pepplana, Pap, Obbe, Wapom, Eppfam, Pabae, Pempam, Attaspap, Mipoba, Pyppeta, Pubi, Pippapa, Arpara, Prossem, Wempy, Wappam, Papplapa, Pupwapa, Pempy, Pumpubup, Peppsa, Obba, Popuspa, Nompo, Proppla, Pamprappy, Wepplem, Pufpe, Apesta, Papob, Pambami, Nirespop, Wappla, Plupes, Impiva, Pentam, Ampype, Saprapep, Wibi, Ufpe, Moppa, Mammy, Apa, Palom, Teman, Nupa, Namensa, Pamptu, Rop, Paffap, and Prompob so they could use the Pabaps as pawns to propel them to power.

In 3953, Adabawa defeated Altotta, the first time in over 2000 years a Laban army had won a war in Rilola. However, Adabawa did not have the manpower to actually occupy Altotta, so instead the Thunderers abdicated power in favor of the Loporomo party, thus creating the First Loporomo Empire, often called Loporomo I.

Loporomo rule

In 3977, Laba underwent a civil war which took all of Laba's power out of Altotta. This civil war lasted a very long time, and spread to Rilola, and did not end until 4107 when the Gold people took power once again. Gold people actually settled Laba now, the first major back migration in all of history.

Relations with AlphaLeap

In 4108, with Laba gone for good, AlphaLeap settled in Sulasali and Loporomo and combined the two empires into the new empire of Halasala.

Later history

In Halasala, STW became much larger and more powerful than it had been when it was confined to Altotta. In 4188, STW began admitting adults in large numbers, seating them right alongside their children in the first grade. These adults were giving up their jobs in the mainline world of Halasala to essentially become children again in the hopes of gaining more power. The adults soon misbehaved and disrupted their classrooms to the point of making learning impossible for the children. At first STW teachers did not know what to do, but eventually they hired more teachers and set aside separate rooms within the school for adults.

Most of the adults joining STW were of the Vaska party (known in Paba as Raspara) which had often been accused of kidnapping children in the past. Since the Vaska adults seemed to have no hope of ever attaining power in STW, many people assumed the Vaska, particularly young childless adult males, were joining STW solely to get their hands on the children. But STW protected its people well, and Vaska people continued to sign up even when it was clear that they were being treated only as equals of the children, not as superiors, and would not attain power over the children.

In reality the Vaska who joined STW were trying to turn STW into a pro-Vaska organization, and had stopped trying to conquer them militarily. Meanwhile, the mainline Vaska party was still interested in an all-out war against STW.

In 4190, an STW chief named Joja sent members (adults and children alike) into the Matrix nation, Tata, to help cure some of the diseases that STW had recently spread through Tata. THey promised the Matrixes superpower status, and pushed Anzan to revive the war against the Matrixes. They demanded money for their efforts even though Tata was much poorer than Anzan now. Anzan did actually obey Joja, and invaded Tata with a small army whose intention was to follow and protect the STW members as they worked. Tata, however, immediately captured the Andanese (with the help of some firebirds) and made them prisoners of war. Anzan demanded large amounts of money from Tata as comepnsation. Anzan invaded Tata with a full army in response, and demanded an even larger compensation for that.

Most independent nations declared war on Anzan now, saying Tata had the moral high ground. However, Thaoa sided with Anzan, but was little help, and Anzan almost forsook Thaoa. Raspara joined the war as well, turning it into a civil war. They did damage far more severe than any of the outside nations because they were already living in Anzan and had direct access to the weakest memebers of its population. They focused their attacks mostly on elementary schools and hospitals. In reaction STW increased security at its schools mightily even though it meant fewer troops abroad.

Religion

Yiibam was the official religion of STW, atlohugh people of other religs were allowerd to join.

Beliefs

Mottos:

• Technology and intelligence give work power.
• From women springs forth life, from men springs forth death.

Some of the commandments for STW members were:

• Accept that you may have to forfeit things you love to help.
• Neither cling to your life nor be afraid to take others.
• Keep power in competent, honest hands.
• Treat others as kindly as possible but do not love or hate them.
• Be totally and eternally hostile to the outside world.
• Do not help other workers unless a medical emergency arises.
• Be prepared to back up your threats.
• Never buy anything expensive unless it is absolutely necessary.